Pace Yourself

Today, my good friend CNN tells me that people over seventy who consume one to seven alcoholic beverages a week have a "significantly lower risk of heart problems or death than those who didn't imbibe.???

Read it again -- Lower risk of DEATH. My first thought is to ask the question, "Does this mean they maybe won't die, ever? As in their risk for overall death -- impending, no-way-around-it death -- is lessened???? But I know that isn't what they mean, exactly. They mean a "lower risk of death, tomorrow.??? Which is fine. I'm guessing that's a risk you want to manage when you're over seventy.

Hell, it's a risk I want to manage NOW, so I'm thinking I should get a jump start on managing my death-risk. You can bet those older folks clinking glasses seven times a week didn't start knockin 'em back on their sixty-eighth birthday. They've had to be in training longer than that.

These are the health articles I love. As soon as I get so discouraged about trans-fats and pesticides and frankenfoods and the price of organics and poorly tested drugs and impure water and cleaning product residues and fiber intake and processed, white devil-flour that I'm certain I'll poison and pickle myself into an early grave, the media kicks me something like this. Something that says "Yeah, we said all that other stuff, but who are we kidding? Drink up!??? Like at camp when you hear that chilling story about the guy with the hook for an arm, running around these very woods, killing people, and just when you're all scared and ready to call your mom, somebody asks the camp counselor if it's true, and he says "Naw, none of that's true.??? Sweet relief!

So good news, folks! Clean livin' isn't all it's cracked up to be. Besides encouraging me to continue with the cocktails, this story cements my plan to tie it all back on when I start my coast down the slope. And you can bet I'll start up again with the smokes, too, because who can enjoy her nice, old-lady-brandy-drunk without a cigarette between her wrinkled fingers?